Copperplate botanical illustration of Dittander / Lepidium latifolium from Robert Thornton's British Flora, 1812. Once used as a medicinal plant.


- Background information on this batch of This is a digitally restored copy of an original plate from Robert Thornton's 'British Flora' published in 1812. Being some 200 years old the original pages are variably foxed (that yellow-orange toning you get with old books), some badly and unevenly. Tears and creases have been restored digitally, or re-built from cleaner sections of the image page, as have some parts of pages which were crumbling around the corners and edges. Where possible the images have been cropped away from the actual page edges, and in some instances to simply reduce large open spaces of blank paper where the engraving is smaller. Original pages somewhat longer than A5 size format. - I have taken significant saturation levels out of the Orange & Yellow channels in LR, but not the other colours, and left just enough saturation to give a hint of warmth to suggest the page is old. While most unsightly blobs, stains, spattered ink have been digitally removed, there are a few instances where the oil in the ink has leached into the paper (a very soft type) and have left a sort of 'shadow' mixed in with the drawn structure of the plant. - While this may be useful in some instances for suggesting the age of the image & page it may not be suitable, and require converting the image to a high contrast monochrome copy using levels to play with the BW threshold.


Size: 5318px × 8129px
Location: uk
Photo credit: © Marcus Harrison - botanicals / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No

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